The most meta thing Yogi Berra (n)ever said

“I really didn’t say everything I said.”
– Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra was an acclaimed catcher for the New York Yankees (a 10-time World Series champ), but he is perhaps better known for what have long been called “Yogi-isms,” or malapropisms that are still in use today. Classics like “it’s déjà vu all over again,” “when you come to a fork in the road, take it,” and “nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Berra was so well known for these sayings (there are dozens more, and there are arguments about whether he was merely repeating others) that he wrote a book — called The Yogi Book — from which today’s quote is drawn. How meta is that? Similar versions have been attributed to him over the years, and you’ll see this variation of it on the book’s cover below.

A trivia question that has come up on CBC Radio’s show (I’ve been a guest there a lot of times over the years) is who came first: Yogi Berra or Yogi Bear?

The answer of course is Yogi Berra. Born Lawrence, he acquired his nickname while still a teenager, purportedly because his style of sitting reminded a teammate of how yogis sit. Yogi Bear started calling out to Boo-boo and robbing pic-a-nic baskets in 1958. He had his own TV show within three years.